PWCG 5.1.2 Released - Bodenplatte Campaign!

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Played a while today and found the ai to be mixed. PWCG ai at default. Some of Russian fighters were natural born killers some easy pickins. Bombers didn’t seem notably different for the most part. They seemed to take a lot of hits before any effort to evade. Not sure if they were different than before. I changed PWCG ai to lower experience and the enemy fighters got noticeably easier to down.

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Played a while today and found the ai to be mixed. PWCG ai at default. Some of Russian fighters were natural born killers some easy pickins. Bombers didn’t seem notably different for the most part. They seemed to take a lot of hits before any effort to evade. Not sure if they were different than before. I changed PWCG ai to lower experience and the enemy fighters got noticeably easier to down.

Thanks for checking on your end.

Not sure what is going on with my end of things, coming upon some really tough 109 AI at any level of late.

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… guess you all fly fighter missions/campaigns, don't you? We actually fly a dive bombing campaign, but since 5.04 we unfortunately do not face any russian fighters at all. Sometimes some PE2 show up, fly past and will get downed by 109s escorting us. Guess I still haven't found correct settings.

Edited December 13, 2018 by Black-Hussar

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… guess you all fly fighter missions/campaigns, don't you? We actually fly a dive bombing campaign, but since 5.04 we unfortunately do not face any russian fighters at all. Sometimes some PE2 show up, fly past and will get downed by 109s escorting us. Guess I still haven't found correct settings.

I am flying on the other side an Il2 1941 campaign, and I occasionnally meet ennemy fighters, which I take as an opportunity to find new names on the squadron roster

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… guess you all fly fighter missions/campaigns, don't you? We actually fly a dive bombing campaign, but since 5.04 we unfortunately do not face any russian fighters at all. Sometimes some PE2 show up, fly past and will get downed by 109s escorting us. Guess I still haven't found correct settings.

Fighter contact is intentionally suppressed in ground attack/bombing/dive bombing missions. There is an advanced config that allows you to generate more fighter contact - I will look it up later when I have the opportunity.

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Pat when you have time can u look at AAA? I have ground set to medium. Random ground and 10x AAA is at 0 as they slow things down too much with some stuttering for me particularly in ground attack missions. Seems medium would generate reasonable ack ack but I get almost none. Is there something I’m missing?

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Honestly, it's pretty low priority. As with everything else I would like to get to it, but this one, like the Ju52, is going to take awhile. I am going to have to create night missions for it and learn exactly how they were used, then implement that into PWCG. Other aircraft are much easier to integrate because their usage is already defined and the mission profiles don't have to be written.

On 12/22/2018 at 2:19 PM, TheSNAFU said:

Pat when you have time can u look at AAA? I have ground set to medium. Random ground and 10x AAA is at 0 as they slow things down too much with some stuttering for me particularly in ground attack missions. Seems medium would generate reasonable ack ack but I get almost none. Is there something I’m missing?

Can you post a mission without AA? I play on medium ground setting and I feel like I see plenty of it near the front, so I need an example of what you are experiencing.

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The attached mission file is a patrol mission in August 42 with JG52 at Stalingrad. In the mission we encountered IL2's attacking ground forces on the front lines. During the mission I was over the front much of the time and in Russian territory for a good while too. During the fight with the IL2's I was very low at one point and saw light AA for a brief few seconds which did fire at a Russian plane I was pursuing but as far as AA that was it. No heavy AAA at all that I saw and only that one short instance of any AA at all from what I saw. I took time after disengaging to fly around the front at different altitudes but saw no AA during that time.

Maybe my install is borked? All else with PWCG seems to be working properly.

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Question: Does the latest version of PWCG have the newest planes? I don't care which map we use, just want to fly the newest plane set. If not, how can I easily add the plane of choice to my career? (Only wanting to modify my and my squad's plane to a BoBp plane.)

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I have not added the newest planes because there is no environment in which they can be used. Since PWCG is a campaign that implies some historical context for the planes. Without the maps I don't have that context. At some point I could do the software development required for the new planes. That would let others add them to squadrons in a home brew. This is something that I have to do at some point anyway. I have been pretty busy on other development so I can't make any promises on a timeline.

1

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Very quiet in here so I thought I would share a few highlights of a mission from today. 10 September 1942 supporting 6th Army and 4th Panzer Army flying G2's with JG 52. The mission was a penetration taking the flight directly over Stalingrad. According to the map the front lines have not reached the city. Before we reached Stalingrad a battle developed with some Russian Pe2's. I damaged 2 ( 1 later crashed) and a mate took down 1. The last one got away. Afterward we flew a few circles around and over the city which was wrecked but not burning. Some mg's fired at low level planes. The city and the Volga were under artillery fire. The return to base was uneventful. I was the last to be cleared to land and as I came in I was jumped by 3 Laag's. I literally ducked, it surprised me so much. I buried the throttle, pulled up the gear and flaps and began flying for my life. We had done well in our mission and I wasn't expecting any trouble over our field. After some crazy flying i finally landed safely ending a most intense mission. I flew 2 additional missions the last being my 30th, an intercept and an escort and both were excellent.

Great great fun!

The only bad part was the AI in the fight above my field. I took out all three Russians by diving away from them and pulling up at the last second. I watched each of my 3 enemies lawn dart into the ground over the course of 3 or 4 dives The AI does a better job of evading now but they still crash far far too often and are way to inclined to turn fight. It gets frustrating sometimes for a game of this calibur.

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The only bad part was the AI in the fight above my field. I took out all three Russians by diving away from them and pulling up at the last second. I watched each of my 3 enemies lawn dart into the ground over the course of 3 or 4 dives The AI does a better job of evading now but they still crash far far too often and are way to inclined to turn fight. It gets frustrating sometimes for a game of this calibur.

Salutations,

I unfortunately have to agree with you about the AI performance. Although my experiences have occurred testing my Single Player missions. The AI pilots simply should not follow a diving or crashing enemy craft into the ground. This should especially be true for a AI designated craft set at the ACE level.

- To make a dummy campaign, replace the assignment in a squadron and start a new campaign.

- Or wait a week or two and I will have something that looks like Bodenplatte (on the Stalingrad map)

Really, I don't recommend doing it and I don't have time to support it, but if you absolutely must you can try hacking PWCG squadron files to add the new planes. Or wait a bit. I am working on Bodenplatte now. The map will be Stalingrad but the squadrons will be correct and the planes will be properly tested in a campaign environment.

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Started a campaign with Spitfire IX working very well. 2 missions in and what a treat to fly the IX. Thank you

Glad it's working. When I add a plane there are a number of things that have to hang together. I always test in game before I declare a plane to be working. With the BoBP planes I have not yet done that testing so there is a much higher probability of error. However, if it worked then it looks like I got the Spit IX right

Next steps are to create a Bodenplatte campaign on the Stalingrad or Moscow map. That means properly adding the US and Britain as countries (graphics, names, images, services), defining the Bodenplatte units, etc. etc. etc. Once that is done I will say for sure that the new planes work. Two weeks. Be sure.